Guillermo del Toro Wants to Make ‘Maleficent’

Psst! Hey, Disney... Over here!

With Disney still out to make Maleficent, the biography of Sleeping Beauty's sexy villainess, following director Tim Burton's departure, we've learned that the House of Mouse is actively looking for a 'suitable' replacement. We put 'suitable' in quotation marks because apparently David O. Russell, director of Three Kings and The Fighter, has unexpectedly made their short list. You know whose name they haven't mentioned? Guillermo del Toro. Why is that weird? Well for one, he'd be perfect for the job, and for another he actually wants to do it.

Yes, the director of such fantasy flicks as Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy recently expressed interest in the project to Hero Complex, in which he expressed his enthusiasm for the project in no uncertain terms. "I think Maleficent’s dragon is the only design with the wings separate from the front legs, the only time that design has ever worked. And let me tell you how much of a fan I am. I have a collection of over two or three dozen Maleficent figures, some of them four or five feet tall. I own about 10 pieces of conceptual art from ‘Sleeping Beauty’ that include the dragon and a lot more pieces that are just from ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ It’s one of my three favorite Disney films. I would love to."

YAY!!!

"But I don’t want to put too many hopes on it. They’re probably on a fast track and I cannot take any more projects on a fast track."

AWWW…!!!

Still, it's not like we're in a huge rush to see Maleficent, so if Disney can hold up for a while while del Toro finishes Pacific Rim we're comfortable letting them.

Crave Online will be back with more Maleficent news when it's actually news. Sigh…